


After

by FrontButts



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hallucinations, Hannibal is dead, M/M, Other, Sequel, Will is in jail, spoiler lol, the best possible world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 11:51:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8205605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrontButts/pseuds/FrontButts
Summary: This is a really informal sequel to my Season 3 AU, The Best Possible World, in which Will and Hannibal kill Jack together at the end of S2 and cavort off to Europe. The sequel is set whereabouts of Silence of the Lambs in that it has Clarice Starling in it, but is only a sequel inasmuch as it picks up where Best Possible World left off. Long story short it's a series of conversations between Clarice and Will regarding Buffalo Bill, Hannibal, and life in general. If there's interest I'll post the rest of it.





	1. The Introduction

Clarice stands teetering on the edge of the boundary line, looking as if she would like to move closer but is being restrained from doing so. Will scrutinizes her with an unashamed eye, looking her up and down, not moving from his seat on the bed. He is intrigued by her- she is an anomaly, an untested substance, a glaring new blight on the grey monotony that has become his life. She is color, flesh and blood in his world of smoke. Hannibal smirks his approval.

“Did the FBI send you?” Will asks, his eyes locked onto hers- more for her sake than for his.

Clarice nods. “Yes.”

Will grins. “How’re they doing down there?” he asks, narrowing his eyes. “Not well, I think, if you’re here.”

“No, not well, I’d say,” Clarice shifts where she stands, breaking eye contact with Will for a split second. “I’m sure you know why I’m here.”

Will’s gaze softens slightly at the sight of her discomfort, but his voice is as numb and blunt as ever when he next speaks. “Do you want to sit down?” he asks, and there is a bitter, mocking ring to the niceties. Clarice shakes her head, and she is about to speak again when Will cuts her off. “They can’t live with me, can’t live without me, can they?” he says. “Keep me locked away for the sake of my mental health- until, of course, they need to pick at my brain again.”

Clarice doesn’t have an answer for that. She glances down at her case folder, suddenly unwilling to give it to this strange creature on the other side of the glass. She feels she can’t trust him with it. He watches her with a weird, shifting glance, taking her in first with one eye and then the other, as if he is trying to create a fuller picture of her than what one look could tell him. She wonders if he thinks he knows her somehow. Suddenly Will frowns and leans forwards a bit, looking her full in the face.

“Do you know who I am?” he asks, and for the first time he sounds more incredulous than mocking.

“No, sir, I’m sorry,” Clarice replies. “I mean, they gave me the rundown at Quantico- name, background, credentials, all that. They said you had a history of working with the FBI on difficult cases.”

Will laughs at this, quiet and cold, his hatred for the Bureau drowning out any fleeting pity he might have felt for this girl they’ve sent him. “Of course they wouldn’t tell you,” he says, making Clarice frown in confusion. He’s not looking at her anymore- his gaze comes to rest across the cell on a patch of wall that, to her, is empty. “I’m sure it’s all been swept under the rug by now.”

“Well-” Clarice takes a bold step forwards, still clutching the folder like a lifeline. “If I may ask, Mr. Graham- could you tell me?”

At this Will shifts his entire body so that he is no longer sitting perpendicular to her- instead he is fully facing the front of the cell, his legs bent over the edge of the bed in such a way that it seems almost as if he will pounce at her, as if there is no glass between them. It is such a jarring shift that Clarice actually blinks, her mind working to close the gap between the detached Will of before and the threat that now looms in front of her. Will’s gaze is empty, his demeanor deceptively casual, but there is something predatory in the way his humorless smile cracks his face across the middle. And when he speaks next, his voice is still quiet, still the slightest bit disinterested, but Clarice feels a shift- she feels marked.

“I fell in love.”

Hannibal is smiling.


	2. Air

Will is already waiting when Clarice next returns, still seated on his bed but with his neck craned to look down the hallway, anticipating her arrival. He gestures to the waiting chair when she reaches his cell and she takes the seat, grateful for a reason not to cross the dividing line.

 

“Did you ask the director about me?” he asks without any preamble. This time Hannibal is sitting on the bed with Will, peering over Will’s shoulder to watch Clarice with a brightly curious air. “Did you look in the old files?”

 

Matter-of-factly Clarice nods, trying not to let Will’s good humor -if one could call it that- color their conversation. She doesn’t want to be derailed. “Yes,” she says. “I understand now.” A pause, and then- “I’m sorry.”

 

Will blinks. “Sorry,” he repeats, as if testing the word. “Don’t be sorry, it doesn’t mean anything. Just don’t let the director keep information from you anymore.”

 

Clarice nods again, putting finality into the movement- she doesn’t want to discuss this anymore. “Did you read the files I gave you?” she asks. She can see them sitting in the transfer box, and she has the compulsion to take them back, but she remains firmly planted in her chair. There is something about the way Will is looking at her today, with the ghost of a smile on his face, that keeps her behind the dividing line. She knows his “process,” having researched it extensively when she was assigned to the case, and she thinks she can see the shadows of Buffalo Bill’s murders stalking the cell. Perhaps that is what is looking out at her from Will’s flat expression- what he saw in the case file worming its way into his mind.

 

“Yes,” Will says. “You can take them back, if you’d like. I don’t need them anymore. I’ve borrowed enough imagination for one week.”

 

“And did you find anything in the borrowed imagination?” Clarice says. It’s a difficult ploy, to be so blunt, but she hopes he will be more open to cooperating in his current mood. Will smiles, almost gratefully.

 

“Jack used to treat me like I was fragile," he says by way of reply. "Like if he touched me I would shatter."

 

Clarice frowns. "I'm sorry?"

 

Will shakes his head. "No, no, I should've known you wouldn't get the reference. Jack Crawford was the head of the Baltimore branch of the FBI for-" he shrugs. "The better part of two decades. Alana Bloom followed him, and now your man." Something about how Will says Jack's and Alana's names makes Clarice uncomfortable. "Both Alana and Jack looked at me and saw spun glass- saw something delicate and dangerous." Will makes full eye contact with Clarice now, and she returns it with what she hopes is an impassive respect. "I appreciate that you don't do the same."

 

"I try not to underestimate anyone, Mister Graham," Clarice replies shortly, all business.

 

Will actually chuckles. "In the line of work you've chosen that's the smartest thing anyone can do." Next to him, Hannibal stands and begins to pace. Will glances at his vision for a moment, frowning at its unexplained change. He sees Clarice watching him with something like concern in his peripheral vision, but her curious stare doesn't perturb him any more than the stares of the flies that cluster on his uneaten dinners- she is safely on the other side of the glass, perhaps only slightly more real than anything within the cell.

 

"Mister Graham," Clarice finally says, with the slightest edge to her voice. "If you don't mind I'd like to return to the subject of the files." Will's reaction is delayed; he is still watching the empty space on the other side of his cell with a sort of religious wonder for a few seconds before his eyes drift to the side and refocus on Clarice like a camera lens. Clarice has the presence of mind not to unconsciously step back.

 

"The files," Will repeats, leaning back against the wall of his cell with his hands clasped on his knees. "It's a lot of information you've got in there."

 

"We try to be thorough," Clarice says, a little thrill of power running through the word we.

 

"I'm aware," says Will. "Thorough enough that you could catch him right now- if you wanted to, of course."

 

"I'm sorry?"

 

Will's eyes follow Hannibal back and forth across the cell with a rigid, secret attentiveness, flicking from one end of the tiny space to the other as he answers Clarice without looking at her.

 

"Everything you need is there," he says. "I don't need to borrow the man's imagination to tell you that. The Bureau's been making the same mistakes now for over a decade. I suppose the newest generation is just going to follow suit."

 

"Mister Graham." Clarice hates how the name is almost a plea. "If we hadn't exhausted every resource available to us, do you think I'd be here now?"

 

Will raises his eyebrows at this bit of vulnerability, the nakedness of the admission hanging between them, but otherwise his expression does not change.

 

"Yes."

 

"Well, either way it doesn't matter, does it?" Clarice says shortly. "I'm here now, and you've agreed to help us-"

 

"We've agreed to look at the files," Will says, just a bit too fast. "Nothing else." There's a moment of silence, one far too awkward and inorganic to be a lapse in conversation, and then Clarice narrows her eyes.

 

"I'm sorry, Mister Graham, but did you say 'we?'"

 

For an instant Will glances across the cell to stare at an empty space somewhere above his head with a panicked, guilty look, and Clarice is given the impression of a small child whose hiding place has just been given away. It's like he is at once both asking forgiveness and sharing a secret fear. Then he is looking back at Clarice with a new mask on- something opaque and impassive and defensive. He gives a short nod.

 

"Well-" Clarice makes the split second decision to ignore Will's strange behavior entirely. "I, um- my question still stands. Will you help us?"

 

Will blinks at her, then suddenly decides to stand up and begin to pace, his back to her. "I noticed that there are six missing girls and only five recovered bodies.” A pause -he’s savoring it- and then, “That explains the urgency, then. She’s still out there.” Clarice is silent, unsure of what to say to that. It isn’t as if Will is wrong. After a moment he turns around again, and she is struck by his expression- written on his face is what she can only describe as a petty pleasure. “Agent Starling, do you think that after the Bureau left me to rot for nearly a decade in Frederick Chilton’s basement that I will help them- help you- save face?”

 

‘I’ll tell you what I do think- I think that they’re wrong, Mister Graham.” Clarice carefully squares her footing and adjusts the folder in her arms, drawing strength from Will’s concededly quizzical look. “I don’t think you’re a monster.”

 

Will actually scoffs. “I’m sure you are the leading authority on monstrousness.”

 

Clarice takes a step towards the glass. “Nothing’s more monstrous than selfishness,” she says, her voice clear and strong. “This guy?” She points to the file. “Selfish. Caught up and alone in his own world- these girls don’t even exist to him. I don’t think that’s you.”

 

Will sighs and leans back against the wall of his cell, all of the interest flowing from his face as his body settles. “None of you exist to me, Agent Starling,” he says, a small, almost peaceful smile quirking the corner of his mouth. “You are air.”

 

“Air is real, Mister Graham. Air exists.” Clarice stares at him until he is forced to meet her gaze. “And you need it just like every other living thing.” There’s a moment where she hesitates, but she knows that behind her is the precipice of Will Graham’s apathy- if she steps back she is lost.

 

“I read your files, Mister Graham, like you said,” she says. “I know your murders.” At this Will’s expression changes; he seems alarmed, almost vulnerable, like she had said she’d caught him naked. “They’re- they’re beautiful. Delicate, even. An homage to human life and death.” Will has adopted the distinct look of a wounded, frightened animal, and the fear is mutual, but Clarice presses on. “This?” She gestures to the file again. “This isn’t like that.” She crosses her arms definitively. “You aren’t a monster, Mister Graham, not by my count.”

 

Will’s eyes burn for a moment, his fingers gripping the edge of his bed with an iron force. Suddenly he is looking across to the opposite wall of his cell again, and it almost seems as if he’s having a wordless conversation with himself. Clarice waits patiently, and finally he sighs.

 

“Come back next week,” he says quietly. Clarice waits to smile until she is down the hallway and safely out of sight.


End file.
